BMW crash: ‘FIR lodged 10 hours later… have two young kids’, woman driver tells Delhi court, seeks bail

“The FIR was registered 10 hours after the investigating officer (IO) arrested me. They (police) are saying that Section 304 was invoked as the injured were taken to a faraway hospital. Both families are aggrieved. They (the couple) have two children aged 5 and 7; they were also injured along with the (senior official),” said senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, who appeared for Gaganpreet Makkar (38).

Culpable homicide not amounting to murder is a non-bailable offence, which has a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

The accident took place on Sunday afternoon on the Ring Road near the Delhi Cantonment Metro station. Navjot Singh, 57, who was posted as a deputy secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs under the Finance Ministry, was killed in the accident. His wife was injured after the BMW rammed into their bike.

Police had said Gaganpreet took them to a hospital in GTB Nagar — nearly 17 km from the site.

On Monday, she was arrested from the same hospital in GTB Nagar, where she was undergoing treatment.

Senior advocate Gupta also argued that according to the sequence of events, the car also hit a bus and the bus also needed to be seized by the police. “… an ambulance stopped at the spot, but refused to take the injured to a hospital… It is the DCP’s duty to confirm this,” he added, claiming that Gaganpreet made her best efforts to provide relief to the injured.

The Delhi Police told the court that the hospital (which was around 19 km away from the accident spot) was owned by a relative of the accused.

“The injured, who filed the FIR, said that she was asking Gaganpreet to take Navjot to the nearest hospital, but she kept insisting on taking them to another hospital. The statement of the taxi driver (who took them to the hospital) has also been recorded,” the Investigating Officer submitted.

Judicial Magistrate Ankit Garg of Patiala House Court extended Gaganpreet’s judicial custody till September 27 and posted her bail hearing on Saturday. She had first been remanded to judicial custody on September 15.

Gupta had also moved an application for preservation of the accident’s CCTV footage, for which the court issued a notice and posted it on Thursday.